Since human beings appear on the earth, human beings have attempted various means and methods for realizing the dream of longer life in order to live long without being attacked by diseases. In recent years, new techniques capable of preventing various diseases and extending life by leaps and bounds have been developed. As the living of human beings become wealthy, an interest in a human being himself/herself and his/her family has been increasing.
A time has changed from an era where a patient goes to a hospital in order to cure his/her diseases to an era where a man goes to a hospital in order to prevent diseases and have his healthy status tested and managed. In order to confirm a personal healthy status, various kinds of clinical tests have been carried out.
A clinical test includes a hematological test, immunoassay, toxicology, and a test of other specific categories for testing samples of biological materials, such as urinalysis, blood, serum and urine. The clinical test provides invaluable information related to a person's healthy status. The results of the clinical test are generally used for diagnostic evaluation, surgical decision-making, and recognition of variation occurring in a patient's healthy status.
The clinical test includes an esoteric costly process of generating information with high accuracy. In order to save the expenses spent for the clinical test, an automated apparatus has emerged.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,374,989 entitled “Conveyor System for Clinical Test Apparatus” discloses a conveyer system for a clinical test equipped with an auxiliary conveyor lane. U.S. Pat. No. 5,623,415 entitled “Automated Sampling and Testing of Biological Materials” discloses an automated apparatus in which a transport lane and a queue lane are disposed and a sample is transferred from the queue lane to the transport lane.
A conveyer or other means for transporting samples or reagents are generally bulky, and specialized in a particular clinical test apparatus. They have the characteristics of permanence and inflexibility, once being mounted in a system. For example, if abnormality occurs in the conveyer, the whole system has to be stopped.
In order to save the expenses spent for the clinical test, the test needs to be made as fast as possible. In accordance with the conventional conveyer system, one conveyer can transfer only one sample or reagent at a time. Thus, the conventional conveyer system has a serial structure in which one clinical test is performed at a time.
In order to realize a custom-made clinical test in conformance with the forthcoming clinical test trend, there is a need for a clinical test apparatus having flexibility and miniaturization.